EL Assessment: A Teacher's Toolkit

Course Description:

This course offers practical strategies for assessing English learners across all language domains. Educators will explore legal foundations, demographic shifts, and the processes of identifying, classifying, and reclassifying English learners. Emphasis is placed on designing rigorous assessments for listening, speaking, reading, and writing that reflect students’ language development and support their academic growth. Through interactive modules and authentic tasks, participants will develop tools to evaluate language proficiency, use assessment data to inform instruction, and create meaningful evaluations. This course equips educators with adaptable frameworks and assessment strategies to support English learner success in any classroom setting.

Objectives:

• Analyze historical and current U.S. mandates shaping EL education.
• Examine changing school demographics and their impact on EL education.
• Identify the legal requirements for serving EL students and how they impact instructional programs and school policies.
• Describe the EL identification process, including the role of the Home Language Survey.
• Identify English Language Proficiency assessments used for identification, monitoring, classification, and reclassification of EL students.
• Analyze how federal and state policies impact EL classification and reclassification.
• Describe the role of ELP standards in guiding instruction and classroom assessments.
• Differentiate between assessment, testing, and evaluation by defining and explaining their key differences.
• Discuss the importance of valid, reliable, and equitable assessments.
• Explore various assessment types used to monitor EL students' language development.
• Define Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP).
• Explain the four language domains (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) and their role in English Learner instruction.
• Differentiate between expressive (speaking, writing) and receptive (listening, reading) language skills and describe their roles in language development and communication.
• Define key components of receptive skills.
• Identify factors influencing receptive listening development and comprehension.
• Design effective listening assessments to evaluate a student’s ability to process and understand spoken language.
• Analyze factors that impact receptive reading development and comprehension.
• Develop assessments to measure receptive reading skills and comprehension.
• Define key components of expressive skills.
• Identify factors influencing the development of speaking and writing skills.
• Design effective speaking assessments to evaluate a student’s ability to communicate ideas clearly and coherently.
• Analyze factors that impact written expression, including organization, vocabulary use, and grammatical accuracy.
• Develop assessments to measure writing proficiency and the ability to convey meaning effectively.
• Describe the benefits of using portfolio assessments across the four language domains
• Design a portfolio framework that reflects authentic language development.
• Create clear, domain-specific rubrics aligned with learning goals.
• Evaluate rubrics for clarity, fairness, and alignment with standards.
• Modify rubrics to accommodate varying student needs and levels.
• Synthesize insights and reflect on learning from all modules